The Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) is incensed that President Obama mentioned President Barack Obama compared the civil rights movement to that gay Americans fighting for equality last Saturday in “Ask your gay friend if it’s easier to be out and proud in America now than it was 30 years ago,” Obama said at the 50th Anniversary of the Bloody Sunday March.
“President Obama is a disgrace to the black community,” said. Rev. William Owens of the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP). “He is rewriting history. We didn’t suffer and die for gay marriage. We marched for opportunity, equality, justice, freedom from oppression. We are the true heirs of the civil rights movement. We have a new movement to reclaim the ‘real’ civil rights movement.”
“The LGBT community hijacked our movement, a movement they know nothing about,” Owens asserted. “President Obama is delusional to compare our struggle with the struggle for marriage equality. Gays have not had fire hoses or dogs unleashed at them. They have not been hung from trees or denied basic human rights.”
“President Obama didn’t march,” Owens continued. “He has benefited from those of us who did march, but for President Obama to say we marched so that gays would have the right to marry today, is a disgrace and a lie.”
CAAP has launched a new initiative called RISE, a grassroots network that unites “people of every race, creed, culture, and background,” to focus on defending faith, family, and justice. Or in other words RISE unites “hateful homophobes of every race, creed, culture, and background,” to focus on denying gay people their god given rights under the law.
How painfully ignorant this man is. Gays have not been denied basic human rights? It boils down to the fact – as still thrown at us – that we can hide our sexuality whereas they can’t hide their colour. Yes, we can wear a mask of heterosexuality in order to be “normal”, which completely misses the point. So yes, gays have been denied basic human rights, and for much longer, and in many black countries, we still are. We have been hanged from trees, we have been subjected to police raids, and we still are picked out for gang assault and murder. For this man to play “who’s the bigger victim” immediately makes him the loser in this repulsive game.
And black and gay are not mutually exclusive. The same proportion of gay people in the general population will appear in the black population.